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SpongeBob Brown sets out his jolly new policy stall

It was a gruelling day and the chancellor was hungry. He swallowed a peeled banana virtually whole and then devoured a KitKat while being interviewed.

This was the new, cheerful Gordon Brown. While Tony Blair sweats out his last few months in office, under pressure over cash for honours, the man expecting to succeed him looked positively perky on Friday.

He was also ready for a bit of plain speaking. For the first time he publicly denied knowledge of the loans that Blair and senior Labour figures took ahead of the last general election. “I think everybody knows that I knew nothing about the loans,” he said unequivocally.

The old Gordon was still present, however. Pressed on party funding, he replied in his more familiar, elliptical style: “We have got the review into political party political funding and there is general agreement that there should be a set of changes